Novel - The Universe Quilt - Chapter Two

The goose gave a great honk and
alighted on a grassy knoll. The miller’s daughter slid off its enormous,
feathery back and walked to the little table that was laid out neatly before
her. A pretty, sharp needle and spools of gossamer thread waited as if
expecting her, arranged beside a towering pile of diaphanous, almost invisible
fabric. The giant goose flapped its wings to set off on another journey in that
magical land with sweeping whooshes and
a call like a carved horn. She reached for the needle, but it dissipated in her
grasp—

She
blinked rapidly as her eyes fluttered open. It had been a dream, which of
course it had, since all the nice things she saw lately were dreams. Yet she
heard something outside, very near now, that made her stop and hold her breath.

She
could hear the honk and flap of the goose.

Acting
on excited impulse, the miller’s daughter scrambled into a comfortable dress
and climbed through the window. She thanked the springtime for making the
ground soft and her steps padded. No telling what the miller would do if he
caught her now. There was still a slight nighttime chill in the air, but she
forgot it in her eagerness to find the goose. As quietly as a girl of thirteen
summers can be, she stole around trees and bushes. The goose-sounds seemed
close.

Her
heartbeat quickened and the brilliance of the moment heightened. She knew she
would come upon it now, just a little farther—

She
stumbled into a clearing that she had never found before in all the hours she
had spent wandering the woods. She swore that the last time she had checked,
there had been an impenetrable mass of brambles here, but there was no time to
wonder. A wall of metal rose up to above her head. Strange rectangular chinks
with rounded corners appeared at intervals throughout its length. It was a dull
gray, a lackluster color. The miller’s daughter swallowed her disappointment
and turned to trudge home. Just as she did, one of the rectangles was pulled
back to reveal a well-lit opening. An inviting aura emanated from it and she
was drawn to it despite herself. Caution vanished and in its place was an
anticipation that was entirely new.

The
structure started to hum and the miller’s daughter felt distinctly that it was
about to leave without her on its way to some wondrous dreamland. Suddenly she
knew that she belonged on the other side
of that wall, inside that room. With a renewed urgency she half-ran to it
and found herself inside. The rounded rectangle closed behind her like it had
been waiting for her to board the metal box.

Smoothly,
it shifted into movement, a sleek, well-tuned machine. Everything inside the
moving room seemed oddly angular and it felt natural to sit on a box attached
to the wall. The seat seemed to shape to her body so that the hard material was
comfortable. Handles hung from the ceiling next to poles that connected to the
floor. It was almost completely white, the atmosphere sterile. The miller’s
daughter craned her neck around to look out the wide window behind her and
gasped. The metal snake had risen into the sky and she could see the beginnings
of a springtime sunrise beyond mountains that were coming closer with
unbelievable speed.

After
a few minutes she became bored of admiring the view outside the window and
wished for someone to talk to. John would have loved this mysterious, thrilling
ride and she wondered, with a little pang, how she would get home. She would
never miss the miller’s cottage but John, what about John?

The
metal box seemed to have been reading her mind, and a tall, slim girl walked
into the room wearing a confused expression. She was really quite lovely in a
faded sort of way. Her face was pale, but it was offset by striking, lively
green eyes. Wispy, ash-blonde hair cascaded down to her hip. She looked around,
rather like a bewildered doe the miller’s daughter had seen on one of her
water-fetching trips. Then her eyes settled on the miller’s daughter and lit
up.

“Oh,
good, someone to talk to,” she said brightly. She hovered uncertainly for a bit
before sitting down on the white box. Evidently she had wanted for conversation
for an unbearably long time—in the space of five minutes, the miller’s daughter
had learned the girl’s name, where she had come from, and about a dozen things
that she had been thinking about on this unfeasible nighttime ride. Somehow the
miller’s daughter found her sweet rather than exasperating.

Finally
finished, Lorabeth sighed deeply and turned to her. Something like nostalgia
clouded her face. She looked, the miller’s daughter thought suddenly, like the
vulnerable sixteen-summer girl she was, far away from home with her whole life
ahead of her. She had had a home that she had loved, and in this aspect the
miller’s daughter found it difficult to sympathize.

Lorabeth
jerked back to reality, seeing the miller’s daughter, a girl younger than
herself, reining in her feelings with what seemed like uncharacteristic grace.
She could not know that there were no feelings to rein in. Somewhat sheepishly,
Lorabeth summoned up her burgeoning maternal instincts to care for the miller’s
daughter as time became meaningless and the gray metal strip of rooms rose
higher up into the sky.

The
minutes bled into hours, the hours bled into some sort of interminable
fluid-time. Every so often Lorabeth and the miller’s daughter would turn and
spend short moments in the fluid-time feasting their eyes of the magnificence
outside the window. They became used to their pleasant, if monotonous, new life
inside what they came to call “the white room”.

The
only thing the miller’s daughter found mildly disheartening were the vague,
shadowy attacks of memory about her other life, in the village. They pointed
accusatory fingers and whispered twisted words into her mind about lack of
loyalty, about John, about the wives in town who needed mending done, as she and
Lorabeth slept during what they thought was night. It was impossible to tell
now that the train forged onward on its inexorable path in a deep
forever-darkness, dotted with the tentative twinkle of what appeared to be
stars.

The
miller’s daughter had long since given up on counting the days when Lorabeth
breathed in sharply, feeling the floor with her foot and pacing skittishly.

“Do
you feel that?” she asked quietly. “We’ve stopped.”

It
was true, she realized, and the two girls explored the newly stationary
qualities of the cabin. They verified and re-verified that they had arrived at
last at the destination that those lost souls had wanted for so long.

They
clambered to the window but were disappointed to see a thick mist on all sides.
The place they had visualized was many things, but it was not misty. Lorabeth
and the miller’s daughter sat down heavily, chiding themselves for getting
their hopes up.

For
the first time since they had boarded, a voice crackled from a grate that
materialized in the ceiling. “We have arrived and will be disembarking
shortly.”

In
disbelief, the two girls stared at each other and started to laugh. It was a
real laugh, one that filled their stomachs and their hearts and let all the
confused joy and relief knotted up inside them tumble out.

The
rounded rectangle doors that had let them into the white room began to open
with an almost theatrical slowness and a pfffff
sound like the wind blowing long and hard. A shaft of golden light found its
way inside and both girls, with a spontaneous naïveté, reached out to try and
touch it. Their fingers met with nothing and they giggled.

Then
the opening became large enough to step through, and Lorabeth and the miller’s
daughter, exhilarated, prepared to confront this brave new world before them.